Magnetic Save the Dates

So, after becoming engaged and picking a state to get married in (remember, I'm from CA and the FH is from MA), we figured that we would need to send STDs to those who would be having to travel for the wedding (his family). We wanted to give them plenty of time to prepare for the trip.

Well, then we started thinking that it would be best to send STDs to everyone, not just those who would have to travel, because hey, it's a STD not simply a Book-A-Flight reminder.

With that in mind, we thought long and hard about what do and one day, it just came to me: Magnets. I looked online for companies that could make magnets for us on the cheap, but everything turned out to be pretty expensive (I mean, given our budget). So I started thinking about making them myself - and I did. Not to toot my own horn, but they turned out wonderfully! We mentioned to a few people that the magnets were DIY and they could not believe it - they thought that the magnets were professional.

So, here's what we did:

First we picked a few pictures from our engagement shoot - shot by the wonderful Lexi Savelyev. We opened the picture in Adobe Photoshop and used the tools to add text to the picture (the necessary information, names, date, location in both English and Spanish). We saved the new pictures containing the texts onto a CD and took these pictures to Costco where we printed wallet-sized pictures. Obviously, you can take the CD to any picture processing place such as CVS or Target with the same results. Total cost? About $15 for 12 sheets of wallet-sized pictures (108 total pictures).

We also went to Staples to purchase wallet-sized magnets (typically used for business cards). Total cost: $15.49 for a pack of 50. We ended up buying three.

We cut the pictures to the right dimensions and adhered them to the magnets (the magnets have an adhesive back that is easy to peel).

I went to Paper Source and purchased some card stock. They have a special where if you purchase 10 items of the same thing (i.e. the same sized card stock, envelopes, etc.) they will give you another (of the same item) for free. Total cost: About $60 I believe (they were having a sale) for 100 cards and 100 envelopes.

I printed more detailed info onto the card stock (names, date, invitation to follow, etc.) and then cut slits into the cardstock so that I could insert the magnet.

We chose four different pictures - not all of which were diagonal, so we had to position the text differently on the cardstock depending on the layout of the picture. We also did half of the STDs in Spanish so that my family would understand.

Total cost: With stamps and everything, it was a little over $130. Ok, so it was not as cheap as I thought it would be but it is cheaper than having them professionally done. And the satisfaction of letting the creative juices flow? Priceless.

What did you do for Save-the-Dates?